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Sculptor of Glorious Era

On December 27, 2018, it is the 110th anniversary of Yevgeny Vuchetich, the great sculptor of monuments, who left a prominent mark in the history of Soviet art. It is enough only to name such works as “Let’s Make Ploughs of Swords”, “Soldier-Liberator”, “Motherland is Calling”, “Fight up to the Last-Ditch”. The sculptural ensembles by Vuchetich amaze and conquer.

Yevgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich (1908–1974) was born in Ukraine, in Yekaterinoslav, studied in Rostov-on-Don. When the Great Patriotic War broke out he volunteered for the front. He was a faithful fighter and deserved many awards and earned the title of “lieutenant colonel”.

In 1943, he began working as painter of battle pieces in the Moscow B.Grekov Studio. There, Vuchetich created sculptural portraits of the prominent Soviet military leaders and monumental compositions.

Later he showed himself in the chamber genre creating magnificent portraits of writers, painters, public figures of Russia, the USSR and foreign countries. Among his works there is a bust of M.A.Sholokhov he worked on in 1958.

Two busts of the writer, made one in gypsum, the other – in metal, are kept in the collection of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov. They came from the Sholokhovs’ family in 2012 and 2018, respectively.

Y.V.Vuchetich worked over the bust of the writer in Rostov-on-Don, where the latter came to meet with his electorate. The sculptor remembered: “Mikhail Alexandrovich and I met in the hotel “Moskovskaya”. “If I decided to perpetuate,–Sholokhov said jokingly, – let’s start. And we’ll see what will come out of it…” It was difficult to work. All the time people came to Sholokhov, and Mikhail Alexandrovich had long talks with them. He went to the meetings with his electorate. Usually only late in the evening I could begin working on the portrait. We talked with Mikhail Alexandrovich on literature and other things. Sometimes our talks lasted well past midnight. The work over the portrait went on several days, rather, evenings and nights. I am happy that my dream came true”.

Y.V.Vuchetich was the winner of the Lenin and five Stalin prizes, the USSR People’s Artist, academician of the USSR Academy of Fine Arts, Hero of Socialist Labour. Celebrating the 110th anniversary of the sculptor we can say that the great talent enabled Yevgeny Viktorovich to realize his brilliant author’s intentions which are perceived now as symbols of the era.

Alexey Kochetov